Tom Roper's Running Training

Festival running

I make a point of packing running gear whenever I go away. Last weekend I went to the Tolpudle festival and on the Sunday morning rose early to run out on the lane that goes to Affpuddle for three miles. Add to that a five mile run on Seaford front on Friday andit makes a better week's runnning than I've managed for a while.

I ought to try to find some other festival runners to join me in these outings. Granted, at 6.30 on Sunday morning most of the tents were full of snoring from debauchees who had been singing Billy Bragg songs badly under their gazebos into the small hours, but there must be some athletes. Perhaps next year.

Friday, Seaford front
Time: 53:26
Distance: 4.97
Pace: 10:45

Sunday, Tolpuddle

Time: 31:51
Distance: 3.06
Pace: 10:24

Three miles

A quick three miler on Sunday, my first run since the Bewl 15. My ribs were better, and my knees stood up to the strain, in spite of more dinghy-sailing injuries the previous day. I ran over Seaford Head, rather slowly.

Time: 33:25
Distance: 2.97
Pace: 11:16

On sports injuries

Lying awake with my cracked rib last night, trying to stay still to avoid the pain any movement causes, I thought of the sports injuries of my childhood. Two stand out, the first gained in a game of rugby. I was then, and still am, something of a beanpole, nicknamed Lanky in my first summer job as a van boy at Baldry's Soft Drinks. Though tall, I had little weight or power, so the scrum was not the place for me, but then I was not fast, so was not much use as a three-quarter. I was usually put into the scrum as a prop. One games afternoon, at the time of the first wave of skinheads, another boy came onto the pitch wearing his Doc Martens. As was the custom in those days, he had screwed steel plates underneath the toe to increase the injuries he could cause if he kicked someone. Unusually in a school that paid obsessive attention to detail in uniform and kit, the master in charge of the game did not question this boy's choice of footwear more suited to a Saturday afternoon fight at the Abbey stadium, where Cambridge United played. When the scrum collapsed, his boot made contact, I think accidentally, with my head, and caused a cut which bled spectacularly. I was taken to Addenbrooke's and stitched, and given an impressive bandage.

I thought some good might come of this a day later, when I went to a youth club I used to frequent. The girl I was in love that week also attended and, I reasoned, the bandage would induce in her either feelings of pity for my suffering or admiration at my heroism. She would surely cast her clothes aside and surrender to me on the ping-pong table. In fact she was quite unimpressed. In later life she became a doctor: I wonder if she was practising avoiding emotional involvement with patients.

The second injury took place in a game of hockey. Hockey is staggeringly violent, far more so than anything else. One of the most violent people I have known in my life was a keen player, I think because it allowed him to carry a stick in public. My father used to tell me of doctors versus nurses games he played in when a junior doctor, in which old scores would be settled. But my injury was relatively: I was struck on he forearm by a ball travelling at some speed. Once more I found myself in A&E, where a periossial haematoma was diagnosed and the arm strapped.

Bewl 15

What a gorgeous run is the Bewl 15. And why did I never run it before? Nearly everyone who is anyone in Sussex running was there. Though I write this in pain, with a cracked rib after a fall, and each keystroke comes as painfully as a dying consumptive's cough, I would not have missed it for the world.

The course is archetypal. If I wanted to explain to a foreign visitor the English idea of beautiful countryside, I would bring them here. Travelling from the coast, I felt like Odysseus going inland from Ithaca until he finds someone who mistakes his oar for a winnowing fan; an inexact analogy for those who live round Bewl water certainly know a oar.

Before the start I met @sweder (see his race report here) for a discussion on, among other things, safety-pin technique. We wandered down a country lane to the start, hundreds of runners pressed into a narrow country lane; a tribute to Moyleman, and then we were off, raising dust clouds on the dry sandy surfaces. The first few miles were hard and water at three miles was welcome. Sun and shade alternated. By mile 5 or so I had found a rhythm and all seemed well.

But then, at 7.2 miles, a fall: before I knew it I was on the ground, with a mouthful of Bewl soil. I fell on my left side, and hurt my knee, my chest and my head, and broke the strap on the Garmin. Other runners stopped to see how I was, offer me water and help me up, for which I am very grateful, though I may have seemed a little abrupt with them. I just wanted to get running again. A few yards behind me another runner, distracted by my fall, also came a cropper. In the fall the Garmin stopped, so I have lost around half a mile's data.

This was annoying. If I was going to be injured at the weekend, it seemed to me that the previous day's sailing was much more likely to do damage. In fact I had managed to stay in the boat and only sustained light bruising, whereas running, at which I think I am comparatively more adept, made me spend a night motionless, for every movement brought pain. I dare not cough or laugh.

I started running again: my head hurt as did my chest, and after a couple more miles, when the course moves away from the water, I found myself walk-running. Then uphill to the finish, where I enjoyed the legendary cake. In a field a brass-band played while runners lay around in groups munching cake.

Fashion notes: I wore my runningcommentary.net vest, accessories with a purple ribbon in memory of Moyleman. I recommend this run heartily, especially for those who can stay upright.

Time: c 2:46
Distance: c 14.9
Pace: 11:13

And now the official results are up, and I was 560th out of 668 finishers with a time of 2:45:53. There were some great performances both by Seaford Striders and by Brighton and Hove AC members.

Juneathon 2009

I ran on the last day of Juneathon. I was away in the Cotswolds, at the JISC Digital Content Conference, and had time after the close of the afternoon session to take myself off for a run in a curious landscape of old quarry pits. I ran along the side of the Thames and Severn canal, now disused, and along some roads, at quite a decent pace. The Garmin had become drained of juice the night before I left for the conference, so I put it on charge and forgot to pack it, so I timed myself by my watch and guessed at the distance. My pace felt pretty good.

I enjoyed Juneathon, even if I did not rise to the challenge as fully as I might. But I have taken some exercise everyday, and I have enjoyed following others' Juneathon activity on blogs and on Twitter. For a definitive list of participants, see JogBlog's blog

My final totals:

Indoor activities
Press-ups: 901

Walking and running
Walks: 19.6 miles
Runs: 58.49 miles

Aquatic exercise
Indoor swims: 500 yards
Outdoor swims: 500 yards
Sea swims: 35 minutes

Dinghy sailing: 18 hours